‘If Jacob told me to leave, I’d do the opposite’
Annunziata Rees-Mogg stood down as a Brexit Party MEP last week to back the Conservatives – a decision she made alone, she insists
Annunziata Rees-Mogg has warned Nigel Farage faces going “from hero to zero” over Brexit because leavers will blame him if there is a hung parliament next week. The Brexit Party MEP, who resigned the whip with three colleagues on Thursday, urged her supporters to vote for the Conservatives, accusing Mr Farage of splitting the Leave vote.
“The only option now is a Tory government, led by Boris Johnson, with Boris Johnson’s deal or Remain,” she told The Sunday Telegraph.
“I’ve got respect for the Brexit Party but I can’t stand by and watch their strategy risk Brexit.”
Criticising the Brexit Party leadership as “politically naïve and lacking in strategic awareness”, the 40-year-old former Conservative candidate, whose brother Jacob is Leader of the House of Commons, said. “The decision Nigel Farage has made with the clear support of the majority of his MEPs and clearly, his chairman, Richard Tice, is one I think is so fundamentally flawed that it does take him personally, but also the party, from hero to zero in the space of a few weeks and that is a great tragedy.”
As a lifelong member of the Conservative Party and having twice unsuccessfully run for Tory seats, Ms Rees-Mogg became the poster girl for the Brexit Party in April when she was announced as an MEP candidate for the European elections.
Saying it “wasn’t enough” to only stand down candidates in Tory constituencies, the pregnant motherof-two said the Brexit Party now had “zero chance” of having any MPs elected to Parliament.
“The Brexit Party standing candidates in close marginals like Lincoln up the road from me here are just making remain more likely.
“If people are going to vote with Labour, SNP and the Lib Dems against Boris’s deal, how do they help Brexit?
“If the election ends up in a hung parliament, then the whole country is in real trouble, and people will be looking for who to blame for that.
“I don’t know what Nigel’s current motivations are, but they don’t make any sense to me. I know he’s getting pressure from every direction. But that’s true of every leader, and you have to plot the best course that you can see, and you have to make those tough decisions. There is definitely a sign of political naïvety and lack of strategic awareness. Whether that is coming from Richard [Tice], or elsewhere, I don’t know.”
Ms Rees-Mogg joined fellow Brexit Party MEPs John Longworth, Lucy Harris and Lance Forman in quitting the party on Thursday and calling on supporters to vote for the Tories.
“I’m no fan of Boris Johnson and never have been – he’s not my cup of tea – but I do believe he’s a leaver and that’s the only thing that matters to me,” she added.
Describing Mr Johnson’s deal as “definitely not Brino [Brexit in name only]”, she said: “Every single piece of advice and instruction we were given as Brexit Party MEPs was that it was the second worst deal in history. And it was Theresa May’s deal Mark II but didn’t turn out to be true.
“I would encourage anyone who is in a constituency where there is a Brexit Party candidate to still vote Conservative because the stronger the Conservative hand to support Boris Johnson’s deal, the more likely it is we actually get to leave the EU and surely that’s what we’ve all been fighting for from the beginning?
“His deal brings back sovereignty to the UK. It enables us to make our own international treaties; it withdraws us from EU law. We’ve got our cake. And we can eat it. Nigel Farage now wants a cherry on top. While I remain an admirer of all that he has achieved, he needs to accept he’s won.”
Ms Rees-Mogg also dismissed claims her Cabinet minister brother, who at 50 is 10 years her senior, persuaded her to switch support to the Tories.
“If he had, I’d probably have done the opposite,” she joked. “As a 40-yearold woman who has been making her own decisions for rather a long time, I do find it insulting and sad that they go to those depths. He did say it’s been a brave decision, but most of our conversations are about the mundane things of family life with a bit of politics thrown in for fun.
“We accept we have different opinions. And we don’t tell each other what to do. He didn’t tell me to leave the Conservatives, which would have been extremely weird. And he didn’t tell me that I should return to them, and as I say, if he had, being slightly contrary, I might well have done the exact opposite. The important thing is Brexit, not sexist throwaways that people do as the men in their lives.”
At 27 weeks pregnant, Ms ReesMogg said she is looking forward to the election being over. “I think getting all of this out of the way would be good for my blood pressure.”
‘I’m no fan of Boris Johnson … but I do believe he’s a leaver and that’s the only thing that matters’